Interesting ...

Just wondering, whether this leads us back to the third stake holder (i.e. whoever provides the funds).

Admins are always resource constrained and an upgrade might cost more (e.g. in terms of $ and / or time) than their current budget has on offer. Doing a major upgrade might not be an option for them.

This would lead us to the following questions:

How much should it cost to run a forum like this based on modern SW?
How much does it currently cost to run this forum?
If there is a cost issue - is there anything the users (or potential sponsosrs) could do to contribute to them to narrow or close the gap?